A storage center (e.g., a supply chain node, a distribution center, a warehouse, a storage facility, a fulfillment center, a cross-dock facility, a bulk break center, an unstructured storage area, a wholesale store, a wholesale-style store, a membership warehouse club, a retail store, a departmental store, a supermarket, a grocery store, a manufacturing facility, and/or a package handling center) may be a physical space in which inventory (e.g., products) are stored for delivery and/or sale to retailers and/or consumers. The storage center may allow a single location to stock multiple products. Some organizations may operate distribution, wholesale, retail, and/or direct-to-consumer distribution in a single storage center to share investments (e.g., in space, equipment, labor resources, and/or inventory as applicable).
The storage center may have several main areas: a receiving dock, a storage or retail area, and/or a shipping dock. The storage center may have a series of rows having stacked shelving, with aisles between them. An inventory management system (e.g., WMS (warehouse management system)) may be used to identify and track inventory and locations in the storage center. Items may be tracked or transported using supply chain node vehicles (e.g., forklift trucks, pallet jacks, warehouse vehicles, transport vehicles, trolleys, or inventory tracking vehicles with cameras or sensors) from the receiving dock to the shelves in the storage area, from the shelves in the storage area to the shipping dock, and/or among shelves. The operation of supply chain node vehicles may be labor intensive and may require skilled workers. Hiring such skilled workers can be challenging and time consuming. New workers may take significant time to acquire the skill to operate the supply chain node vehicles safely, effectively and efficiently, leading to higher cost. Human fatigue after long intense working hours may elevate the possibility of workplace accidents.
Merchants and distributors may keep track of items stored in stacked shelving based on shelf number, row number, column number, and/or relative position. Workers in the storage center seeking to find inventory to fulfill a particular request may spend added time in finding needed items. Workers may need to manually look at a map, discern the labels of each product, and/or search for products on shelves by reading individual labels. This may be time consuming and inefficient. When a new worker is employed, it may take time for them to develop a mental map of the storage center. It may take time for them to locate the aisles and the shelf storing the inventory. This may increase cost. Further, such manual processes may be error prone because they may depend on human labor. Misplaced items due to error may be difficult and time consuming to find. Relabeling and/or rerouting of the storage center to accommodate customized solutions may be difficult to modify, inefficient, expensive, and/or cost prohibitive.
Using an autonomous supply chain node vehicle (e.g. autonomous forklift and/or autonomous robot) that may navigate in the storage center may alleviate some issues, at least partially.